Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (2004)

Played on steam on modern PC. Contains minor spoilers:

• Many, many glitches. Some areas are closed off at the end of the game so you cannot get the hidden upgrades without exploiting another glitch or reset to the earlier save, despite the game supposedly being semi-open world. There was a glitch on mummy platform part where the platform did not rise after Dahaka chase, so I needed to reload earlier save and redid all of the chase sequence.
• Very bad game controller's support. Previous game does not support controller, so using steam controller is easy. This game however, support the controller but no option to deactivate and no support for x360 controller. The only way to play it is to use a fan patch file (to support x360) and then setting the controller config manually in the game. Even then, some original config still persisted (LT keeps opening menu instead of whatever button I assigned and when loading the game, the first few seconds the controller does not respond correctly).
• Confusing path and map. Sometimes it's hard to follow where you're supposed to be going.
• Dahaka chase is harder than necessary because of janky and jumping camera angle.
• Enemies are too many, too tough, and not fun. There was an area where I have hit the invisible ninja for 50 times but she hasn't died. Despite playing on normal. Some bosses are unfair and do unblockable hits multiple times.
• The story ends on cliffhanger, some storylines are confusing and makes no sense or handwaved.

The good thing:

• Combo is fun when you learned how to kill enemies with combos.
• Platforming is great and the biggest selling point.

It's way worse than the first game of the trilogy.

For starters, there are no partner sections like in Sands of Time, you're alone at all times. That was a very important part of the first game and made it stand out. Nothing is in place here to fill the void.

The combat is repetitive and boring. Enemies eat so much damage and there's always way too many of them in a single fight.

The story is not told as a flashback with a narrator but rather as a classic linear story, albeit with a few time-travelling quirks. I thought it was underwhelming.

The environments are all drab and samey-looking. Very little colour and too much post-processing to add bloom. The characters look quite bad, worse than in SoT.

It overstays its welcome by a few hours and has way too much backtracking.

Platforming is excellent however, and the castle has a real feel to it, like it's a thought through location. Barring the insane traps and bottomless pits in every hallway.

Sands of Time is certainly a classic, Warrior Within is mostly for the fans.

Been enjoying this a lot so far. Playing it on easy because I hated the combat in the first game. They have improved it a alot, but also decided to have more of it. I just want to run on walls and jump around a lot. There is something very satisfying about slowly and methodically traversing rooms in this game.

Tonally this game is awful. It trades the light banter of SoT for dull brooding, and the music is annoying. I have turned the music off completely, which also turns off all the dialogue in cutscenes. It makes it really eerie. The chase scenes are now mostly silent and geniunely terrifying.

It still looks incredible and I love the level design. There is a lot of backtracking, but it doesn't really bother me yet.